The Boise State football team's new summer workout? Yoga

The Boise State football team begins summer conditioning Monday and there will be several new wrinkles.

Among them: Saturday yoga workouts.

Strength and conditioning coach Jeff Pitman began using yoga when he was at Colorado (2006-10) and utilized it last year at Arkansas State.

“I wasn’t real hip on it back in the day,” Pitman said. “At Colorado, I actually did it a little bit and it killed me, so I said, ‘If this is going to hammer me, it’s going to hammer them.’ It’s something I feel like helps them, especially the way we lift. It unwinds them a little bit at the end of the week. It’s mostly flexibility and body awareness and body balance.”

The Broncos will lift Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. They’ll run Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Veterans will participate seven of the next eight weeks, taking off the week of July 4. They get five days off leading up to fall camp, which begins Aug. 1.

Two other changes: The NCAA allows coaches to participate in conditioning workouts and hold meetings in the summer now and Pitman will bring back his emphasis on running the upper-deck bleachers of Bronco Stadium.

“With the coaches out there, it’s going to get the kids’ attention more,” Pitman said. “I probably won’t have to do as much yelling this summer as I’ve had to do in the past.”

I’ll have a full story on the Broncos’ summer plans in Sunday’s newspaper.

If you’ve been following the NCAA governance issues, the SEC said Friday that the schools in the power five conferences likely will create their own division if they don’t get what they want. Story here.

About Bronco Beat

Dave Southorn joined the Idaho Statesman staff in 2013 and has covered Boise State athletics since 2005. A 2004 University of Colorado graduate, he focuses on the Broncos' basketball and football teams.